The Wi-Fi Alliance defines Wi-Fi as any wireless local area network (WLAN) products complying with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) 802.11 standards, such as but not necessarily limited to IEEE 802.11: Telecommunications and information exchange between systems—Local and metropolitan area networks—Specific requirements-Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications, 2012, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties herein. Long-Term Evolution (LTE) relates to a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and other device based on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)/Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)/High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network technologies developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as specified in its Release 8 and 9 document series and/or TS 36.201, 36.300, 36.304, 36.306, 36.321, 36.322, 36.323, 36.331, 36.401 and 36.306, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties herein.
Integrated Wi-Fi/LTE small cells are becoming more prevalent. The Wi-Fi access point (AP) and the LTE eNodeB (eNB) may be collocated in this architecture and may share some of the resources (power, probably antennas, etc.). In a home environment, the same backhaul can be used for Wi-Fi and LTE traffic (DOCSIS, DSL, etc.), see Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) communications, such as that associated with U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 14/181,640, 14/181,641, 14/181,643 and 14/181,645, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties herein. The LTE and Wi-Fi radios, in such integrated access points, work independently on licensed and unlicensed bands, respectively. In addition, many wireless devices have both LTE chips and Wi-Fi chips embedded in them (smart phones, 4G/Wi-Fi tablets, etc.). In a home environment, such devices coexist with Wi-Fi-only devices (laptops, smart watches, Wi-Fi-only tablets, etc.) and LTE-only devices (regular cell phones, etc.).
A dual-radio wireless device is either in a single-mode (LTE-only or Wi-Fi only), or in case both radios are active simultaneously, they serve different Internet Protocol (IP) flows. In the former case, the IP packets use the services delivered by either the Wi-Fi PHY/MAC or the LTE PHY/MAC. In the latter case, although both radios can be active simultaneously, two different IP connections are needed (e.g. two different car-of-address in mobile IP) and the radios serve different IP flows. In a typical architecture, both radios, and hence both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, cannot serve a single or the same IP flow. In addition, the two radios work independently and the PHY and MAC parameters chosen by them are not decided jointly. One non-limiting aspect of the present invention proposes a unification sublayer to enable both Wi-Fi and LTE radios to serve the packets delivered by a single IP connection with capabilities to jointly decide their associated radio parameters.